


forever flowing

by arochill



Series: Lakefront (Modded SMP) [4]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hybrids, Loneliness, Merling Niki, Modded SMP brainrot continues, Phantom Wilbur, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29534388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arochill/pseuds/arochill
Summary: She didn’t know anything outside of her lake, and she was okay with that. It was her home, and it was slowly becoming the home of others just like her.She was so glad they were able to be themselves in the only home she had known.(Sometimes, that felt like a lie.)
Relationships: Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot
Series: Lakefront (Modded SMP) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157234
Comments: 12
Kudos: 165





	forever flowing

Niki didn’t know anything outside the lake. Her lagoon existed alongside it, a permanent home that she knew she would never be able to leave for long. She didn’t mind it all that much, simply because she had never known anything else. Her lake, her lagoon, were safe. They were a space that she had mapped out with precision over the years, and it continued to gain more and more life as time went on and she made it well and truly  _ hers. _

It was home, in a way that existed only in the years spent in it, unable to leave.

It wasn’t bad.

It  _ wasn’t. _

It was a beautiful place. It was home to so many people who had nowhere else to go, and she was  _ happy  _ to share the place she lived in with them all.

She loved her lagoon, and she loved building it up and terraforming the land around it whenever the world decided to rain enough for her to pull herself out of the lake and onto land. It was freeing to create a space around her lagoon, and her friends told her it looked nice every time she added something new.

She didn’t mind being stuck there, honestly. Because she had those friends around, looking out for her. She had those friends, constantly bringing her items and materials that usually she was unable to get herself.

She had her friends, walking along the edges of the water, breathing fresh air, able to walk as far as they wanted to without the worry of being unable to breathe.

She had the water, wrapping around her in a tight hug every time her friends wandered off out of sight where she could not go.

It was fine.

It was all she needed. It was all she would  _ ever  _ need.

She promised.

_ She promised. _

(There was nowhere else for her to go.)

She was happy.

She was so,  _ so  _ happy.

She had Wilbur at her side near constantly, making jokes and bringing things for her to decorate her lagoon. He was the best friend she ever could have asked for – the brother she didn’t know she needed. On bright days, he sat with her in her lagoon and laughed with her when she moved fast enough that her tail threw water at his face. On days when it rained, he held her hand as she pulled herself out of the lagoon, and waited with her through the pain that would always be forming legs.

Wilbur was there through everything, even before his hybrid traits came into being.

They were connected in a way neither of them could fully explain. Neither of them minded. They loved each other in a way that only they could.

Wilbur didn’t leave her. He promised her he never would. He promised that he would show her a world outside her lagoon. He promised her that before he wandered off on an adventure on a bright day, long before he became unable to do so, and came back pale, burning and not remembering her name.

She trusted him with her life, even if she knew that promise would never remain fulfilled.

She trusted him, because despite all the others that lived around her lake, he was the only one who always returned. Even if, when he returned, he didn’t remember his own promises.

Wilbur offered to take her to the Nether. He told her he would find a way, no matter how long it may take.

It was an offer made from a determined man, ready to make his sister happy.

It was not a promise.

Sharp teeth, scaled tail. She was as inhuman as all the rest of her friends. It wasn’t until she met the first of them all that she discovered that they didn’t have teeth like hers – that she learnt that they didn’t need to be in the water constantly or else they might die. There was a difference between them all, even if they pretended there wasn’t.

They could never stay with her in the lake. None of them could stay in there long without being unable to breathe, and she knew they’d never understand her home in the way she did.

Cold blooded, gills to breathe. She would never be able to understand life in the way that any of her fellow hybrids did, and there was a jealousy that burnt through cold veins at the thought of that even though she wished it didn’t. She fought hard against that jealousy, because she loved them all dearly and the feeling of jealousy  _ hurt,  _ because she knew they didn’t deserve it.

They were her family, even if they were able to live in a world she could never,  _ ever  _ access. She understood she could not change it.

There was a life outside her lake and she would never be a part of it. It didn’t matter how much she wished for it in the quiet of the night, wrapped in her water, all alone.

It was a quiet night when Wilbur helped her out of the lake, rain falling down onto both of their heads, and pulled her forwards. He didn’t answer her questions for where they were going. He didn’t do anything but continue to walk and smile at her in a way that was suspicious and soft and  _ Wilbur. _

He dragged her forwards on her wobbly feet, far from the area that she usually spent her time when it rained.

She couldn’t help but feel hesitant, but she trusted him.

It was nothing she deserved, nothing she had earned, and she didn’t understand  _ why,  _ and yet –

There was something special, only a few minutes away from her lake. It was unnatural, formed by cold, translucent hands, and yet it grew just as it should in its original biome. It was made with only one person in mind, in the hopes of seeing the smile that so often graced their face grow brighter and more genuine and more  _ her. _

There was a small forest, only a few minutes away from her lake. She would be able to walk to it anytime it rained, and the forest was encircled in deep blue water that she could  _ tell  _ originated from her lake. It was red, and bright, and there were man-made lava lakes spread throughout. The grass was just as red as the trees, and any breath she had left in her was exhaled deeply as she took it all in. She knew this wasn’t the nether. She hadn’t been through a portal because she  _ knew  _ what going through a portal would do to her. But she knew, in an obscure, second-hand knowledge sort of way, that this land in front of her was  _ from  _ the nether.

And Wilbur had brought it  _ to _ her.

Niki didn’t cry often – there was no point. Any tears she provided only ended up back in her lake, so it never happened that much.

But when Wilbur, who had not promised he would do this and  _ yet, _ smiled at her brightly and led her into the forest he had built, she did not try to stop the tears from falling.

**Author's Note:**

> merling niki holds my heart and i love her so much. so, so much.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed! as always, let me know what you thought! comments sustain me. thank you for reading <3


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